Tag Archives: sitting

Most people know that sitting too much can contribute to obesity, but did you know that spending too much time watching the TV may contribute to blood clots in the lungs? A large study of 85,000 people suggests that adults who sit and watch more than 5 hours of television daily were more than 2.5 times likely to have a pulmonary embolism compared to those who watched less than two-and-a-half hours of TV. The authors suggest that a way to reduce this risk is to constantly stand and stretch your legs and just reduce the amount of TV time daily. Increasing physical activity can also help inhibit these types of clots!!

Did you know that during a typical work week, people spend almost 5 hours daily, sitting at their desks, and this doesn’t even count their drive time, or sitting at home eating or watching TV? Finding the right blend of sitting and standing (moving) while at work can be complex. The trend now is standing work stations where you can adjust your work station height to accommodate standing while working. Sitting on a stability ball is another trend. Why stand? Standing helps burn calories, reduces the risk of cancer, lowers long term mortality risk, reduces risk of cardiovascular disease, as well as type 2 diabetes and other metabolic problems. Alternating between sitting and standing is probably the best alternative to this dilemma. Alternate between standing and sitting until you get at least 2 hours of standing and slowly work up to longer periods of standing. The real key is alternating positions regularly while at work and not sitting for hours at a time while working on a project. Move it people!! Stay healthy…!!

Health Tip Today: I hope you won your Super Bowl bets! I saw an add the other day and the slogan was basically that “sitting is the new smoking”. It got me to thinking and I remembered some other blogs I wrote about sitting and posture and how sitting for extended periods really creates problems relative to our health. In fact studies have indicated that too much sitting can actually shorten our life spans. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition reported that inactivity contributes to twice as many deaths as obesity. There is an increase risk-for-all cause mortality with lower levels of physical activity. The good news is that the bad effects of associated with sedentary time generally were decreased in magnitude with higher levels of physical activity compared to lower levels. The take home message is that we need to “move-it” if our jobs consist of extended sitting and inactivity. As little as 20 minutes of exercise a day can provide some very needed benefits.

Here is an important study not only for your benefit but your kids and grandkids. In a small study of 7-10 year olds, researchers found out that sitting for extended periods caused stiffening of the thigh arteries at around 3 hours. There was a 33% decrease in thigh artery flexibility. Researchers were stunned this would happen in children. This has long term ramifications for future health as this could increase cardiovascular risk by as much as 25% by the time they are adults. Getting up and moving every 10 minutes helped return the vessel flexibility. Children spend about 60% of their day sitting and being inactive. Thus, if you have a desk job or kids who computer things all day. Time to get moving. I always tell my computer job-related patients to get up and move every 10-15 minutes. Now we know why!

We all sit and sometimes we have jobs that require a lot of it. Taking care of the lower back is important in those situations. Did you know that sitting in the perfect posture, the lowest inter-vertebral joint in the spine (low back) is flexed at 60 percent of its total range of motion? That is a lot pressure on the low back. However, slouching causes the lower 3 inter-vertebral joints to approach their limits of flexion. This means slouching for long periods will increase the load on the back muscles, tendons, ligaments, joints and discs that can cause problems. Take frequent short breaks if you sit a lot at work and find some lumbar support that keeps your posture upright. An ergonomic chair can help also! You might even discuss this with your boss and possibly get your company to purchase a good ergonomic chair for you!

Seated posture is extremely important due to the fact that Americans are sitting longer. Slumped posture is associated with greater head flexion/neck flexion and increased activity of the extensor muscles in the neck that hold your head up. If this posture is repetitive, it can create fatigue, muscle tightness and pain. Adjusting the angle of the backrest of the chair and adding a lumbar roll for support in order to correct the slouching posture is a great way to improve this situation. Bad posture can even contribute to shoulder impingement issues. Stay healthy!